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Eldan
2010-07-21, 05:16 AM
"While legends, found across the world, among the civilizations of dwarves, giants and other, equally ancient civilizations indicate that the high elves are descendant of faeries, such accounts are, curiously, entirely absent among the elves themselves. While there are old legends indicating that they came "from another world", the nature of that world is rarely even alluded to and, if mentioned at all, only in the vaguest of terms."

-Findelwald Tungsten, A Treatise on early Elven History

"I would prefer if you stopped reffering to the Sidhe as "Wild Elves". While they may look superficially similar to my people, I can assure you that they are no less related to us than your people are to Troglodytes, even if you both stink horribly.
No. They are different from us in every way. They are untrustworthy, fickle, dishonest and utterly insane."

-Silenias Lorimgalead, Elven High Mage


It is said that, many thousands of years ago, there existed a plane parallel to the material, as the shadow is today, the world of Faerie. It was ruled over by the wise Nuada Silverhand, king of the highest court and ruler of the many lesser courts and tribes of the fey peoples.
When Nuada was killed in one of the fey's many wars againt the Fomorians, he was succeeded by his daughter, Titania. However, her rule over Faerie did not last long: her younger sister, the now nameless Queen of Air and Darkness, led a civil war against her, and in the process, the world of Faerie was sundered, it's fragments coming to rest scattered over the outer and inner planes, on Arborea, Ysgard, the Outlands, Pandemonium and the Dreamscape.
In those times, the people who came to be known to other mortals as elves were the lowest caste of fey: gifted with neither the innate magical powers nor the physical strength of the greater fey, they had only the advantage of numbers. Bred to be servants, there were dozens of elves for every greater fey, and hundreds for every lord.
Among the faerie realms which came to rest in the Dreamscapes, there was one known as the Amber Spires. It's Lord, his true name now forgotten, was a master of arcane magic of a skill extraordinary even among the highest lords of faerie. Paranoid and insidious, as he was, he allowed no other great fey in his realm, instead only inhabiting his realm with elves, the servants he saw as insignificant and non-threatening.
However, the Dreamscape is a curious place: mortal minds drift there while their bodies sleep, and soon, the elves began to study these minds, and the mortal memories embedded in them, and there they learned of the material plane, and how the mortals there lived in freedom, not ruled over millennia-old immortals with powers rivaling those of the gods themselves. Desiring such freedom for themselves, they rebelled against their Lord, using arcane magic stolen from their master and the essence of the Dreamscape to put him a sleep so deep, he would never awaken again.
So began the exodus of the elves: traveling through the ethereal and using magic gates and fairy pathways, they arrived on the material plane, where the fledgling mortals of the other races looked on in wonder as the elves built their powerful empires.
They would not last long, however, for no high fairy lord is ever chained for long. Still asleep, the Lord Nightmare's mind reached out to those of his renegade servants in their dreams, he drove them insane with visions of blood and fear. War and destruction came over the elven empires as brother slaughtered brother in the streets.
Few survived the ensuing chaos: using meditation techniques, and concentration, they kept themselves from ever falling asleep, thereby escaping the madness now hunting their people.
As the Lord Nightmare's power grew once again, he reached out not only to those elves asleep, but also to those who let their minds wander for too long. And so the elves created The Path, a new philosophy to ensure that their descendants would not fall prey to Lord Nightmare again. Every elf must lead a life of constant vigilance and concentration, lest he fall to nightmares and insanity.

High Elf


Size and Type: Medium Humanoid (Elf). The elves have all but extinguished the fairy blood in their souls.

Abilities: +4 Dex, -2 Con, +4 Int, -2 Cha. While physically frail compared to other humanoids, elves make more than up for it with their extraordinary grace. And while their constant focus and attention gives them great intelligence, other humanoids find them unsettling and strange: the Path does not allow them creativity and diversion, and while they share the fairies' disdain for the "lesser" races, they do not have the charm to make up for it.

Base land speed: 30 ft.

Low-light vision: elves can see twice as far as humans in bad light conditions, such as candle- or starlight.

Meditation: Elves have a +2 racial bonus on all concentration and autohypnosis checks, and these skills are always class skills for them (even if they are not psionic). Instead of sleeping, elves normally go into a deep trance for at least four hours each day, which provides them the same rest as normal sleep does to humans.

Frightful Dreams: All elves are trained from childhood not to sleep and to distinguish reality from deception, and, using powerful magic, have made this so much a part of their lives that even their newborns do not sleep at all. Elves have a +2 racial bonus on will saves against all phantasms and patterns, and a +4 racial bonus against all sleep spells and effects,but a -2 penalty against all spells which work on them while they are asleep, such as a Nightmare spell. However, if they should ever fall asleep, through such an effect or otherwise, they become fatigued for the next 24 hours and suffer 1d4 wisdom damage.

Immortal: Elves do not age as other mortals do: they are effectively immortal and do not gain any penalties or bonuses for aging. Upon gaining their first class level, they can select two class skills, gaining a +4 racial bonus in those skills, representing the fact that they likely have trained in their given profession for centuries. Furthermore, they treat all exotic weapons with "elven" in their title (such as an elven courtblade) as martial weapons instead.

Sealed Memories: In their centuries of life, every elf accumulates more memories than they could ever consciously process. To cope with this fact, elves use their nightly meditation to seal away unnecessary facts and memories, and to access and relive ancient ones. This has the side effect that every elf has vast amounts of forgotten knowledge sealed inside him. Once per day after the elf has stopped trancing, he can make an intelligence check to remember a specific, helpful fact about something they heard the day before. This functions as a bard's bardic knowledge.

Automatic Languages: Common, Elven. Bonus languages: Dwarven, Draconic, Giant, Gnome, Sylvan.

Favoured Class: Wizard

Level Adjustment: +1


Wild Elf:

Size and Type: Medium Fey. Unlike their rebellious brothers, the wild elves' fairy blood flows strong.

Base Land Speed: 30 ft.

Abilities: +4 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Wis, +2 Cha. Quite different from their civilized brothers, wild elves are unfocused, prone to let their minds wander. They are, however, also very creative, with strangely magnetic personalities.

Low-light vision: elves can see twice as far as humans in bad light conditions, such as candle- or starlight.

Glamour (sp): Wild elves project a mental effect which makes them seem much more beautiful, self confident and graceful than they really are. They can cast Eagle's Splendour once per day as a spell like ability, with a caster level equal to their HD.

Forgetfulness (ex): Instead of carefully archiving their accumulating memories during the night, like their high elf brothers do, wild elves instead just forget all the daily facts they deem unimportant during their sleep. This has the side-effect of helping them to combat not only mental control, but also all forms of painful mental experiences they suffered during the day. Every night, while asleep, a wild elf can make a second saving throw against any mind-affecting effects and spells they are affected by, and they automatically heal four points of mental ability damage during their sleep.

Fairy Magic: Living with the higher fey has given the wild elves a lot of experience with their magic and constant trickery. They have a +2 bonus on all saving throws against charms, compulsions and glammers.
Furthermore, if they gain levels in druid, ranger or any other class casting nature-based spells using it's wisdom score (DMs decision), they can use their charisma score instead of their wisdom score to determine spell DCs, spells per day and the highest level of spells they can cast. In their minds, they should not worship nature, nature should worship them.

Immortal: As the higher fey, elves do not age. They get older, but neither any wiser, nor any weaker as they do. They gain no boni and suffer no penalties for aging. Additionally, when gaining their first class level, they gain an additional 6 skill points, which they can only spend on craft, knowledge or perform skills, representing their centuries of studies. It is said that, unlike the high elves and their intensely focused studies, the wild elves have the attention span of small children, changing subjects and areas of study frequently, leaving their spellbooks for an art project, their art projects for weapon training and their weapons for new lovers. Perform is always a class skill for them.
Finally, wild elves treat any exotic weapon with "elven" in it's name as a martial weapon.

Shifting Aspect: Adult wild elves are often many centuries old, and their heads are full of half-forgotten memories and talents, which can suddenly resurface. Every morning, after trancing, they can choose one aspect from the following table to apply to themselves. However, this aspect can never be the same aspect they chose the day before.

*Aspect of the Hunter: the wild elf's base land speed increases to 40 feet, and gains Woodland stride, as the druid's ability.
*Aspect of the Warrior: the elf gains +2 strength and proficiency with one elven weapon or bow of his choice. If he is already proficient with that weapon, he gains +1 to attack rolls with that weapon instead.
*Aspect of the Prey: the wild elf gains +2 dexterity, and a +4 bonus to spot and listen checks.
*Aspect of Magic: if the wild elf has a casting class, he gains +1 to caster level with that class. If he does not, he instead gains spell resistance equal to 12+HD.

Level Adjustment: +1


Notes: Basically, this homebrew started with a simple question: why don't elves sleep? Now, what came out does in fact share a good deal of fluff with 40k's Craftworld Eldar, which was at first unintended. However, once I saw this connection, I exploited it.

Now, the question is: what do people think of this version of the elf race (I might post Wild Elves, those still connected to the fey, later)? I've often read the comment that elves, while being centuries old, are no more competent at their jobs than humans are after a handful of years of training, and tried to do something against that. Also, how is the balance of this race? Apart from the attribute bonuses, little of it should be relevant for combat, but is there abuse potential for any of it's abilities? Anything you think I might add, especially to represent their immortality and centuries of training?

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-07-21, 06:15 AM
I like this - I'd been thinking for a while about making the demi-human races LA+1 and making them thus more distinct... but now I'm working on an E6 game, so LA is a bad idea.

Why not nerf the ability adjustments, and call them LA 0?

Eldan
2010-07-21, 06:30 AM
To do that, you could quite easily make them +2 dex, -2 con, +2 int, -2 cha. They'd be similar to grey elves, then.
I like the unbalanced stats, however. Makes them more different from other humanoids.

As for your other idea: would that involve making humans the only LA-less race? Because I think that would make them pretty powerful.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-07-21, 07:26 AM
To do that, you could quite easily make them +2 dex, -2 con, +2 int, -2 cha. They'd be similar to grey elves, then.
I like the unbalanced stats, however. Makes them more different from other humanoids.
There are more ways to set a race apart from the rest of the humanoids - I think the features you've come up with and the flavour to go with them is plenty ot make elves stand out, without needing +4 ability adjustments.


As for your other idea: would that involve making humans the only LA-less race? Because I think that would make them pretty powerful.

Let me start answering by saying I've abandonned the idea in favour of racial feats in an E6 game - but yes, I intended for humans to be the only ones without an LA.

In older versions of D&D, the idea was that by starting out more powerful, the demi-human races learned less than humans - they stopped advancing in most classes around 10th level or so, whereas humans could go on and on to the top levels.
In those games, there were no feats and skills, so the special features that the demi-human races got really set them apart from humans. Being able to see in the dark is way more potent when there's no such thing as blindfight, for example.

So I wanted to emulate that - give out bigger racial features, but add an LA. I was also looking at the Racial Paragons, so that even more features could be added during the career.

But like I said, since that, I've gone with racial feats tpo try to achive the same thing.

Eldan
2010-07-21, 07:41 AM
Well, I think it would be interesting to rewrite at least a few more nonhumans, dwarves perhaps, as LA races. Dwarves wouldn't even need much to go into that category, they have a boat-load of racial bonuses already. I'm not sure on gnomes, but halflings at least I wouldn't move into LA territory, they don't fit the "ancient and powerful" stereotype as dwarves and elves do.

Morph Bark
2010-07-21, 08:15 AM
I like this - I'd been thinking for a while about making the demi-human races LA+1 and making them thus more distinct...

That would only serve to make humans more attractive to play though, and they already are one of the best races for prettymuch everything you'd want, unless you want race-specific feats or PrCs (or an artificer, where a warforged would excel).


At any rate, this as a replacement for Elves ties fluff and crunch together nicely, though I've mostly just skimmed the fluff here, but I got the whole "ties to fey" thing that 3.5 doesn't really have, whilst 4E appears to have it in bucketloads.

Eldan
2010-07-21, 08:18 AM
Well, the thing is that I took the "why don't elves sleep" thing and gave them a fluff reason for it, namely slavery to a fey lord of dreams. That's the short version. So they are related to fey, but not fey anymore.
Wild elves, on the other hand, would still be fey and have more fey-like powers.

And yes, this is similar to the Eladrin/Elf distinction in 4E, as much as I dislike the solution there.

Peregrine
2010-07-21, 09:14 AM
I like it, I like it a lot. :smallsmile: It makes the elves really feel like an ancient and wise race.


Notes: Basically, this homebrew started with a simple question: why don't elves sleep?

You know what's really bizarre? For my campaign setting, I started with pretty much the same question, and though I went in a fundamentally different direction, I came up with some rather similar elements in the backstory. (My elves were fey who became too enamoured of humans when they appeared in the mortal world, and were cast out of the fey courts and "cursed" to be like them. When fey sleep, which the rules say they do, it is unlike the sleep of humans; their minds are in perfect communion with nature. Elves can no longer access this kind of sleep, of which their trance is a poor reflection, but neither can they sleep and dream as humans do.)

Eldan
2010-07-21, 09:17 AM
Ah. As I said, my fluff came to a big part from Warhammer 40k, where elves (Eldar) who let themselves go have their souls eaten by Slaanesh, the chaos god of excess and passion. This is a little less extreme, but an elf prone to daydreaming or trying to sleep will slowly go insane.

Darkxarth
2010-07-21, 09:24 AM
I like it, and I agree that it makes Elves really seem ancient and "different" from Humans or other races. I am also recrunching and refluffing the basic races in my own campaign world. I had not been considering using LA +1 races (as I am using E6) but I think that I will switch to Point Buy make Elves and Dwarves (at least) LA +1 races.

I would be interested in seeing your take on a redo of Dwarves. They seem to have a lot of abilities (which, it is generally agreed, put them at the top of LA +0), but they don't all mesh well or even make sense in a 3.5 game (seriously, how often is it useful to know exactly how far underground you are?).

Eldan
2010-07-21, 09:30 AM
Dwarves...

Well, they could actually stand to be even tougher, if they are made LA 1.

Now, mythological dwarves, stealing from mythologies around the world, have a lot of interesting abilities and quirks one could use. Turning to stone is probably not the best idea for a player race. The aspect of more magical stealth dwarves, as they occur, as an example, in the Germanic myths, are covered by the duergar.

That leaves craftsmanship. Dwarves should excel here, but don't, really. They have a +2 bonus, which is good (the famous "everyone is level 5, tops" article explained that), but I think they could stand to have more. Perhaps they can more easily craft masterwork items, or something.

Then they could be given a kind of earth connection. I don't know. Caster level bonus to earth spells, perhaps, but the generic D&D dwarf is rarely a caster.

No, I don't really know what to do with dwarves, to be honest.


Edit: I just remembered: one thing I once used in a game was a subrace of dwarves who slowly turned into living stone as they aged. Though that was done via a template added to old dwarves, not the race itself.

Eldan
2010-07-22, 04:39 AM
Added Wild elves to the first post, though I think they need a little more. Any ideas?

Any other races people think I should look over? Not dwarves, I just have no ideas for them, but something else?

Thinker
2010-07-22, 09:01 AM
I like this - I'd been thinking for a while about making the demi-human races LA+1 and making them thus more distinct... but now I'm working on an E6 game, so LA is a bad idea.

Why not nerf the ability adjustments, and call them LA 0?
E6 provides support for LA races. They start with a lower point buy and allow for up to LA +4.

Q: With only 6 levels, how do races with a level adjustment work?
If you use races with a level adjustment, the 6th level cap is a big issue. Use the point buy rules in the DMG as follows:
LA Point buy
+0 32
+1 25
+2 18
+3 10
+4 00


Background"While legends, found across the world, among the civilizations of dwarves, giants and other, equally ancient civilizations indicate that the high elves are descendant of faeries, such accounts are, curiously, entirely absent among the elves themselves. While there are old legends indicating that they came "from another world", the nature of that world is rarely even alluded to and, if mentioned at all, only in the vaguest of terms."

-Findelwald Tungsten, A Treatise on early Elven History

"I would prefer if you stopped reffering to the Sidhe as "Wild Elves". While they may look superficially similar to my people, I can assure you that they are no less related to us than your people are to Troglodytes, even if you both stink horribly.
No. They are different from us in every way. They are untrustworthy, fickle, dishonest and utterly insane."

-Silenias Lorimgalead, Elven High Mage


It is said that, many thousands of years ago, there existed a plane parallel to the material, as the shadow is today, the world of Faerie. It was ruled over by the wise Nuada Silverhand, king of the highest court and ruler of the many lesser courts and tribes of the fey peoples.
When Nuada was killed in one of the fey's many wars againt the Fomorians, he was succeeded by his daughter, Titania. However, her rule over Faerie did not last long: her younger sister, the now nameless Queen of Air and Darkness, led a civil war against her, and in the process, the world of Faerie was sundered, it's fragments coming to rest scattered over the outer and inner planes, on Arborea, Ysgard, the Outlands, Pandemonium and the Dreamscape.
In those times, the people who came to be known to other mortals as elves were the lowest caste of fey: gifted with neither the innate magical powers nor the physical strength of the greater fey, they had only the advantage of numbers. Bred to be servants, there were dozens of elves for every greater fey, and hundreds for every lord.
Among the faerie realms which came to rest in the Dreamscapes, there was one known as the Amber Spires. It's Lord, his true name now forgotten, was a master of arcane magic of a skill extraordinary even among the highest lords of faerie. Paranoid and insidious, as he was, he allowed no other great fey in his realm, instead only inhabiting his realm with elves, the servants he saw as insignificant and non-threatening.
However, the Dreamscape is a curious place: mortal minds drift there while their bodies sleep, and soon, the elves began to study these minds, and the mortal memories embedded in them, and there they learned of the material plane, and how the mortals there lived in freedom, not ruled over millennia-old immortals with powers rivaling those of the gods themselves. Desiring such freedom for themselves, they rebelled against their Lord, using arcane magic stolen from their master and the essence of the Dreamscape to put him a sleep so deep, he would never awaken again.
So began the exodus of the elves: traveling through the ethereal and using magic gates and fairy pathways, they arrived on the material plane, where the fledgling mortals of the other races looked on in wonder as the elves built their powerful empires.
They would not last long, however, for no high fairy lord is ever chained for long. Still asleep, the Lord Nightmare's mind reached out to those of his renegade servants in their dreams, he drove them insane with visions of blood and fear. War and destruction came over the elven empires as brother slaughtered brother in the streets.
Few survived the ensuing chaos: using meditation techniques, and concentration, they kept themselves from ever falling asleep, thereby escaping the madness now hunting their people.
As the Lord Nightmare's power grew once again, he reached out not only to those elves asleep, but also to those who let their minds wander for too long. And so the elves created The Path, a new philosophy to ensure that their descendants would not fall prey to Lord Nightmare again. Every elf must lead a life of constant vigilance and concentration, lest he fall to nightmares and insanity.
I like the background. It is interesting and allows for interpretation. It also gives elves an ancient enemy potentially as dangerous as dragons, demons, or devils. Nice work.



High Elf


Size and Type: Medium Humanoid (Elf). The elves have all but extinguished the fairy blood in their souls.

Abilities: +4 Dex, -2 Con, +4 Int, -2 Cha. While physically frail compared to other humanoids, elves make more than up for it with their extraordinary grace. And while their constant focus and attention gives them great intelligence, other humanoids find them unsettling and strange: the Path does not allow them creativity and diversion, and while they share the fairies' disdain for the "lesser" races, they do not have the charm to make up for it.

Base land speed: 30 ft.

Low-light vision: elves can see twice as far as humans in bad light conditions, such as candle- or starlight.

Meditation: Elves have a +4 racial bonus on all concentration and autohypnosis checks, and these skills are always class skills for them (even if they are not psionic). Instead of sleeping, elves normally go into a deep trance for at least four hours each day, which provides them the same rest as normal sleep does to humans.

Frightful Dreams: All elves are trained from childhood not to sleep and to distinguish reality from deception, and, using powerful magic, have made this so much a part of their lives that even their newborns do not sleep at all. Elves have a +2 bonus on will saves against all phantasms and patterns, and a +4 bonus against all sleep spells and effects, as well as all spells and effects which only affect sleeping targets, such as a Nightmare spell. However, if they should ever fall asleep, through such an effect or otherwise, they become fatigued for the next 24 hours and suffer 1d4 wisdom damage.

Immortal: Elves do not age as other mortals do: they are effectively immortal and do not gain any penalties or bonuses for aging. Upon gaining their first class level, they can select two class skills, gaining a +4 bonus in those skills, representing the fact that they likely have trained in their given profession for centuries. Furthermore, they treat all exotic weapons with "elven" in their title (such as an elven courtblade) as martial weapons instead.

Sealed Memories: In their centuries of life, every elf accumulates more memories than they could ever consciously process. To cope with this fact, elves use their nightly meditation to seal away unnecessary facts and memories, and to access and relive ancient ones. This has the side effect that every elf has vast amounts of forgotten knowledge sealed inside him. Every night, while trancing, an elf can make a wisdom check to remember a specific, helpful fact about something they heard the day before. This functions as a bard's bardic knowledge.

Automatic Languages: Common, Elven. Bonus languages: Dwarven, Draconic, Giant, Gnome, Sylvan.

Favoured Class: Wizard

Level Adjustment: +1

I think that this race is either a strong LA +1 or a weak LA +2.

Meditation: Granting permanent class skills is very strong, as is the +4 bonus. You may be better off simply saying that Autohypnosis may be used untrained (Concentration is already useable untrained) along with the skill bonus. You also need to specify a bonus type (usually racial).
Frightful Dreams: I would recommend against having various bonuses against different types of related magic. A flat +2 bonus on saves against effects that would put the character to sleep should work fine. Why would they get an extra bonus against spells that can be used only when they're asleep (when they're presumably most vulnerable)? It is nasty, but I don't know if it would come up enough to be a true balancing factor. Again, you need to specify a bonus type for the save bonus (usually racial).
Immortal: +4 bonus is a significant bonus and there should be limitations. I think that you should specify that it must be a class skill of his new class, otherwise you have everyone pumping UMD every time. Also, this should be a racial bonus or you could just grant an extra 4 or 8 skill points at character creation. Why is the elven weapon proficiency listed under this?
Sealed Memories: Knowledge is always associated with intelligence. Why switch it to wisdom for this? You may also want to consider changing it to "once per day when the elf finishes his meditation" just to specify this fact, otherwise it leaves a bit of wiggle room.




Wild Elf:

Size and Type: Medium Fey. Unlike their rebellious brothers, the wild elves' fairy blood flows strong.

Base Land Speed: 30 ft.

Abilities: +4 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Wis. Quite different from their civilized brothers, wild elves are unfocused, prone to let their minds wander.

Low-light vision: elves can see twice as far as humans in bad light conditions, such as candle- or starlight.

Glamour (sp): Wild elves project a mental effect which makes them seem much more beautiful, self confident and graceful than they really are. While conscious and not in the area of an effect which suppresses magic, they have a +6 enhancement bonus on their charisma score. This effect can be dispelled (it's caster level is treated as being 11+the wild elf's hit dice), but it returns on it's own after one minute.

Forgetfulness (ex): Instead of carefully archiving their accumulating memories during the night, like their high elf brothers do, wild elves instead just forget all the daily facts they deem unimportant during their sleep. This has the side-effect of helping them to combat not only mental control, but also all forms of painful mental experiences they suffered during the day. Every night, while asleep, a wild elf can make a second saving throw against any mind-affecting effects and spells they are affected by, and they automatically heal four points of mental ability damage during their sleep.

Fairy Magic: Living with the higher fey has given the wild elves a lot of experience with their magic and constant trickery. They have a +2 bonus on all saving throws against charms, compulsions and glammers.
Furthermore, if they gain levels in druid, ranger or any other class casting nature-based spells using it's wisdom score (DMs decision), they can use their charisma score instead of their wisdom score to determine spell DCs, spells per day and the highest level of spells they can cast. In their minds, they should not worship nature, nature should worship them.

Immortal: As the higher fey, elves do not age. They get older, but neither any wiser, nor any weaker as they do. They gain no boni and suffer no penalties for aging. Additionally, when gaining their first class level, they gain an additional 6 skill points, which they can only spend on craft, knowledge or perform skills, representing their centuries of studies. It is said that, unlike the high elves and their intensely focused studies, the wild elves have the attention span of small children, changing subjects and areas of study frequently, leaving their spellbooks for an art project, their art projects for weapon training and their weapons for new lovers. Perform is always a class skill for them.
Finally, wild elves treat any exotic weapon with "elven" in it's name as a martial weapon.

Level Adjustment: +1


This is a weak LA +1 unless the player plays a spellcaster that uses charisma for his casting stat, in which case it is very strong.


Abilities: Why not just give a charisma bonus here to represent their glamor?
Glamour: Instead of giving a constant +6 bonus, you could provide a spell-like ability that allows them to cast Eagle's Splendor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/eaglesSplendor.htm) once per day with a caster level equal to their hit dice. There are metamagic feats for spell-like abilities so that a player who really likes it can use it.
Forgetfulness: This is very situational and not particularly useful, even when it is applicable. To help balance it out, you could replace this with something like:
ADD: Grants the character either +2 skill points, +1 caster level, or one free exotic weapon as a martial weapon.
Fairy Magic: The Charisma bonus to spells is a very nice ability. I like it. You could also consider giving a +2 bonus to Save DCs with charms, compulsions, and glamors (or even the entire enchantment school).
Immortal: I like the 6 extra skill points. Also, why are weapon proficiencies listed with this?

Eldan
2010-07-22, 09:18 AM
Meditation: Granting permanent class skills is very strong, as is the +4 bonus. You may be better off simply saying that Autohypnosis may be used untrained (Concentration is already useable untrained) along with the skill bonus. You also need to specify a bonus type (usually racial).
Frightful Dreams: I would recommend against having various bonuses against different types of related magic. A flat +2 bonus on saves against effects that would put the character to sleep should work fine. Why would they get an extra bonus against spells that can be used only when they're asleep (when they're presumably most vulnerable)? It is nasty, but I don't know if it would come up enough to be a true balancing factor. Again, you need to specify a bonus type for the save bonus (usually racial).
Immortal: +4 bonus is a significant bonus and there should be limitations. I think that you should specify that it must be a class skill of his new class, otherwise you have everyone pumping UMD every time. Also, this should be a racial bonus or you could just grant an extra 4 or 8 skill points at character creation. Why is the elven weapon proficiency listed under this?
Sealed Memories: Knowledge is always associated with intelligence. Why switch it to wisdom for this? You may also want to consider changing it to "once per day when the elf finishes his meditation" just to specify this fact, otherwise it leaves a bit of wiggle room.


Let's see.
First: actually, yes, those bonuses should all be racial. Don't know why I forgot to write that.

Meditation: yeah, +4 might be a lot. Perhaps downgrading it to +2?

Frightful dreams: the point behind the bonus on spells while sleeping was actually that they train themselves in lucid dreaming, to a point. You are right, however that the fluff makes more sense if they avoid sleeping altogether, so I'll drop that bonus. The bonuses against non-sleep effect are basically intended to represent them training in distinguishing reality from trickery.

Immortal: the "class skills only" bit was intended. If a +4 bonus is too much, how about once again downgrading it to +2? Extra skill points would be fine as well.

Sealed memories: good point about the better phrasing. I went with wisdom here to represent memory, but intelligence would make more sense, actually.



This is a weak LA +1 unless the player plays a spellcaster that uses charisma for his casting stat, in which case it is very strong.
[spoiler]

Abilities: Why not just give a charisma bonus here to represent their glamor?
Glamour: Instead of giving a constant +6 bonus, you could provide a spell-like ability that allows them to cast Eagle's Splendor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/eaglesSplendor.htm) once per day with a caster level equal to their hit dice. There are metamagic feats for spell-like abilities so that a player who really likes it can use it.
Forgetfulness: This is very situational and not particularly useful, even when it is applicable. To help balance it out, you could replace this with something like:
ADD: Grants the character either +2 skill points, +1 caster level, or one free exotic weapon as a martial weapon.
Fairy Magic: The Charisma bonus to spells is a very nice ability. I like it. You could also consider giving a +2 bonus to Save DCs with charms, compulsions, and glamors (or even the entire enchantment school).
Immortal: I like the 6 extra skill points. Also, why are weapon proficiencies listed with this?



Glamour was listed like this because I like the idea of them losing their supernatural charisma when not able to keep it up. Eagle's splendour as a spell-like ability has the disadvantage of only being kept up for minutes, instead of near-continuous. I'm currently thinking about making this only a +4 bonus (so it's not the perfect race for casters anymore) and giving them something else instead.

Fairy magic: the +2 bonus is a good start, I think I'll add that.

Forgetfulness: I know it's situational, but I think they should have this just for their fluff. I was trying to think of better applications, but it's difficult.

Now, as I said when writing them up, I think they need something more. One idea i had, stolen from another thread was to give them the ability to become an elven subrace at the point they turn adult: let them choose one of a list of environment-appropriate abilities (i.e. become a star elf, moon elf, fire elf and so on), representing that their fairy masters "customize" their servants.

Thinker
2010-07-22, 10:33 AM
Immortal: the "class skills only" bit was intended. If a +4 bonus is too much, how about once again downgrading it to +2? Extra skill points would be fine as well.
It is a lot, but reviewing the class again, there is simply a lot of stuff, rather than a lot of good stuff. You could probably leave it as-is.

Sealed memories: good point about the better phrasing. I went with wisdom here to represent memory, but intelligence would make more sense, actually.




Glamour was listed like this because I like the idea of them losing their supernatural charisma when not able to keep it up. Eagle's splendour as a spell-like ability has the disadvantage of only being kept up for minutes, instead of near-continuous. I'm currently thinking about making this only a +4 bonus (so it's not the perfect race for casters anymore) and giving them something else instead.
Eagle's Splendor is only 10 minutes per level, which for a face-type character would be plenty most of the time, as from my experience, there isn't a ton that goes on in a day. At the same time, you force spell casters to take Extend Spell-Like Ability if they want the benefits all day (and even then they'll have to wait until ~level 8 to make it last all day). It has all of the same drawbacks as you wanted built in, but isn't an automatic caster pick.



Forgetfulness: I know it's situational, but I think they should have this just for their fluff. I was trying to think of better applications, but it's difficult.
You want them to be forgetful and it to represent some sort of bonus to the class. The elven subrace may be a bit complicated to implement. Why not give them a benefit that they can change each day, similar to the Killoren race (who are also fey)? Option 1: +2 racial bonus to Strength, Option 2: +2 racial bonus to Dexterity, Option 3: +4 bonus to Search, Spot, and Listen, Option 4: free feat from a specified list (you could even put extend spell-like on this list if you really wanted), Option 5: Increased movement speed.

Eldan
2010-07-23, 03:32 AM
Okay, redone both slightly, the high elf mostly with inserting "racial bonus", where necessary, the wild elf a little more:

-dropped the old "glamour" for Eagle's Splendour as a spell-like.
-gave him aspect abilities, as suggested.

Darkxarth
2010-07-23, 06:14 AM
-gave him aspect abilities, as suggested.

Looks good, though I would suggest switching the Apsect of the Hunter and Aspect of the Prey titles. I can see why you made the decision you did, but I think it might be better the other way.

Hunters need to be able to find their prey (Spot and Listen bonuses)
Hunters should be adept at striking first (+2 Dexterity = +1 initiative)
Hunters typically use ranged weapons (+2 Dexterity = +1 ranged attack rolls)
Prey should be able to escape from their predator (40 base land speed)
Prey need to be able to move unhampered by obstacles (Woodland Stride)


Honestly, it would be better to replace Woodland Stride with Trackless Step if you are going to use it for the Aspect of the Prey. I realize that is a 3rd-level ability, but it is very situational, so I don't think it would be too much.

Eldan
2010-07-23, 06:20 AM
Hmm. True. I thought about Trackless Step, actually. Both are very fitting abilities for a wood-based elf. Okay, then.

Any ideas for other aspects? A fifth one might be nice.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-07-23, 09:12 AM
E6 provides support for LA races. They start with a lower point buy and allow for up to LA +4.

Q: With only 6 levels, how do races with a level adjustment work?
If you use races with a level adjustment, the 6th level cap is a big issue. Use the point buy rules in the DMG as follows:
LA Point buy
+0 32
+1 25
+2 18
+3 10
+4 00

And that there in the spoilered text is exactly why I decided not to go developing races with with LA.

Thinker
2010-07-23, 10:07 AM
And that there in the spoilered text is exactly why I decided not to go developing races with with LA.

LA +1 isn't bad in E6. The bonuses usually make it worthwhile. I have run campaigns where everyone had 25 point buy (and no LA) and everyone did fine. Even LA +4 can be fun if you find the right monster (since many have awesome abilities that make them LA +4).

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-07-23, 07:52 PM
Sure, it's not too bad, but it seemed to me that feats would be a better way to do it - making awesome racial features attainable, but optional.

Here's a link to where I've put up my current list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161424). It's for Pathfinder rules, but it'd fairly easy to back-convert.

Anyway, if you're happy with LA, as I know lots of people are, then the OP's elves are ace and you should probably adopt them.

Jallorn
2010-07-23, 08:22 PM
Well, as a recent fan of the old Celtic mythologies, I must say, I'm a fan.

Eldan
2010-07-24, 01:13 PM
Sure, it's not too bad, but it seemed to me that feats would be a better way to do it - making awesome racial features attainable, but optional.


I just think that generally, the elves should just about always know more about their chosen profession, being centuries old. As the books state, even young adult elves are older than adult humans, and that should be reflected.

Anyway, these aren't particularly celtic, I just stole a few names.

Thinker
2010-07-24, 04:12 PM
Well, as a recent fan of the old Celtic mythologies, I must say, I'm a fan.

Erm...these are definitely not Celtic in origin. Sure, they mention fae and Nuada, but that is about where the similarities end.

Jallorn
2010-07-24, 04:33 PM
Erm...these are definitely not Celtic in origin. Sure, they mention fae and Nuada, but that is about where the similarities end.

And the Fomori. But yeah, I know. I'm just saying that it has ties to Celtic myths, so I'm a fan.

Eldan
2010-07-24, 05:07 PM
As I said. Three or four stolen names, no real connection. D&D fairies and elves are a mess of different mythologies anyway. And Nuada and the Tuatha Dé Danann are already gods in Tír na nóg, so perhaps I shouldn't have stolen that name for a fairy lord. Oh well.